Well, shame on me for not up-dating this blog for W A Y too long! I am loving being here at The Ropewalk, however I seem to be concentrating on knitting lots of special orders & commissions, & have done very little dyeing this year as I have to do this back at home now. The ornamental cherry had been pruned, so I had a dyeing day at home yesterday. As I get asked a lot about how I do this, I took photos to show you . . .

Mordanting - First the yarn needs to be mordanted to help the dye 'stick' to the wool & you need to soak your yarn overnight, or at least 2 hours. I bought my trusty old Baby Burco a few years ago now in a charity shop (£5 bargain!) It's had a couple of repairs, but still keeps going & it means that I can mordant up to 1.5 kg. at a time. It is quite a slow process. . . (so I did some pattern work while waiting) After filling the boiler with tepid water, you mix Cream of Tarter with some hot water, mix well & add to the boiler. Then do the same with Alum crystals. These used to be mined along the East Yorkshire coast near Ravenscar, & you can go & see the ruins on the cliff side - a lovely walk, but a bit muddy & slippery when we went! The yarn is then plopped in too, & mixed well. The lid goes on & everything comes up to a gentle simmer for an hour. I usually like to then just turn the boiler off & let it cool down slowly. The yarn needs a rinse before dyeing, but can be kept in a bucket of clean water for a few days (or more!) until you are ready to dye with it.

Dyeing - In the meantime I had soaked the cherry leaves & small twigs in water for a day or so. Brought them up to a simmer for about an hour or more to get as much dye out as possible.

The whole house had a wonderful fragrance too, as I discovered the first time I used this ornamental cherry.I produced a beautifully unique & fragranced yarn! You can't buy that at Boyes!I ended up with 7 skeins of Champagne coloured British Bluefaced Leicester Natur-ally dyed wool!